Athletics: Sprinter selected for world champs

ON TRACK: Georgia Hulls is off to Cali, Colombia, for the IAAF World Youth Champs in June. PHOTO/Duncan Brown

ATHLETES WHO train religiously often find themselves in a plateau unless they sporadically receive feedback on where they are heading.

Hawke's Bay schoolgirl Georgia Hulls knows all about it after receiving the right signal from New Zealand selectors last week.

Having posted worthy times this year, the Havelock North High School sprinter patiently played a waiting game while training with father/coach Dean Hulls.

"It was a relief to have it officially because it's quite hard training and not knowing so it's good to have a confirmation," says the 15-year-old who received a congratulatory email from New Zealand age-group team manager Kat Austin last Wednesday that she had made the cut to the IAAF World Youth Championship in Cali, Colombia, in June.

A 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay runner, Hulls is hoping to stopover in California as an acclimatising exercise for the team of six on the way to the heat and humidity of the Colombian summer.

She doesn't know much about Colombia but the prospect of venturing to the coffee-producing nation, sandwiched among Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil in the South American continent, excites her.

The other members of the squad are Phoebe Edwards (Wellington, heptathlete), Kelsey Foreman (Wellington, steeplechaser), Ryan Ballantyne (Hamilton, shotput thrower), Maddison Wesche (Auckland, shotput thrower) and Olivia Burdon (Australia, registered Auckland club 1500m and 3km runner).

The coaches haven't been appointed yet.

It'll be the biggest meeting to date for Hulls, a champs held every two years for under-17 athletes.

The Year 11 pupil recently stamped her authority at the North Island Championship in her three age-group (intermediate) disciplines as well as the 400m event.

Earlier this year she won the Australia Junior Champs (under-17) 100m, 200m titles and was part of the national 4 x 100m relay team that smashed the under-18 New Zealand record.

"We were running in the senior grade and finished second," she says, after winning the North Island Open grade race over 200m in December.

Hulls ran the anchor leg after Brooke Somerfield (Tauranga), Lucy Sheat (Marlborough) and Symone Tafuna'I.

Hulls' 100m PB is 11.78s with a tailwind, 200m is 24.09s and 400m is 57.05s "(not that very good").

Asked what the secret to success is for someone who has received training from her father since she was 6, Hulls replied: "Lots of training, about six to eight times a week so that means sometimes twice a day."

That's do-able during the school holidays but flexibility in school days is vital.

"I've dropped a subject [PE] so I have only five now and that gives me an extra study period to catch up on work."

She is competing in the Furnware Cup section of the HB Festival of Hockey this week for schools.

"It's just for fun because I don't have time for anything else," says the teenager who is a ball girl for the Eight Nations tournament.

The desire to win on the tracks is equally up there as a motivational tool, although she has had considerable tastes of defeat.

"It's important you lose enough now and then to know what it's like to lose again."

It goes without saying Hulls is expecting other signals in her promising career, such as an American scholarship and other reinforcements, on the way to Commonwealth and Olympic Games some day.

"I want to go to Olympics so a few things have to happen before that," she says, seeing the Under-20 World Junior Championships (twice) as affirmation that she can make that transition.

Hulls points out the gulf between under-15 to under-16 is not as huge as the one required for under-18 to under-20. She also is mindful that her dominance in the sprints may eventually mature in the middle 400m to 800m distances as she gets older.

There's no doubting Hulls will give it her best shot.